Gender prejudiced Topman Tshirts

Topman has just brought out a new line of Tshirts that seems to assume its male customers are idiots. Gender prejudiced, racist AND potentially pro domestic abuse – oh my!

We’ve normally got no problem with Topman; hey, it’s nice for boys to dress up. But it took our breath away when Topman decided to bring out a range of T-shirts that were, quite frankly, risible in their gender prejudiced attitudes.

Gender prejudice 101: Exhibit A

Nice new girlfriend… What breed is she?

Oh, this is really classy. It’s almost Wildean in its rapier-like wit. It’s clearly referring to the girlfriend as a ‘bytch’, as both a woman and a dog. Ho, ho, ho! We’d expect this low level of humour from a bunch of self-printed T-shirts sold by a dimwit out of a cardboard box on a high street before being asked to move on. Did the sixties even happen for Topman?

On another level, it’s got feeble-minded racist connotations. Pointing a finger at mixed-race, perhaps, or hapless women being asked if they are Japanese/Chinese or Cuban/Indian.

Basically, any boy wearing this is begging you to ask him if he’s just being gender prejudiced, or throwing in a bit of racism while he’s at it.

Gender prejudice 101: Exhibit B

I’m so sorry, but…

We’ve seen “I was wearing beer goggles” T-shirts before and we didn’t bother raising the feminist flag for those. The sentiments were too weak and silly. But this T-shirt is not only offensive but coming darn close to the same-old same-old excuses raised by the perpetrators of domestic violence.

To the boys who bought these gender prejudiced Topman T-shirts and may be wondering if they should wear them

A piece of advice: Don’t. We’ll put it down to a momentary aberration of taste and say no more about it. Pop it in the bin, feel a bit sheepish and pretend it never happened. Okay? Okay.

Boys with girlfriends: Your girlfriend will probably not be impressed with these T-shirts. Enough said.

Single boys: Publicly stating “I’m definitely gender prejudiced and not averse to ironically condoning racism/abuse, too” is not the best way to get laid and let a fabulous one night stand blossom into a glorious meaningful relationship that makes all your mates jealous.

We’re just saying.

And the whole world said…

We’d like to say that boys would never buy these T-shirts and that Topman has made a huge mistake in assuming its male customers are idiots.

At the time of writing these T-shirts were out of stock. Which was a concern. But it’s okay – sort of. The T-shirts weren’t sold out – Topman removed them by choice. So Topman’s customers aren’t idiots, and Topman came to its senses. A happy ending, of sorts.